“The Deportation of the Hindus from British Columbia Will Be a Blessing to All Concerned”: Intersections of Class and Race in the British Honduras Scheme
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Reilly, “Intersections of Class and Race” 32 “The deportation of the Hindus from British Columbia will be a blessing to all concerned”: Intersections of Class and Race in the British Honduras Scheme Kenny Reilly In the fall and winter of 1908, the Canadian Government developed the British Honduras Scheme, a plan to transport all South Asian immigrants from British Columbia to British Honduras. To justify this relocation, the proponents of the plan argued that British Honduras needed cheap labour to maintain sugar plantations and railroads. The Canadian Government suggested that these immigrants could not survive in Canada because they faced unemployment, starvation, and harsh winters they were not suited for. This attempt was well received by many white Canadians of British descent. Many agreed that this transportation would benefit the South Asian community and white Canadians. Two South Asian representatives Sham Singh, a Hindu, and Hagar Singh, a Sikh, were sent to Honduras in order to get the opinion of who the government believed represented the majority of South Asian immigrants in British Columbia: they reportedly had a high opinion of the place.1 However, upon returning to Vancouver both representatives rejected the plan. In fact, they accused William Charles Hopkinson, their interpreter and immigration inspector of the Canadian Immigration Branch in Vancouver, B.C, of bribery.2 Analyzing newspaper representation of the scheme at the time demonstrates how class and race intersected in popular understandings of South Asian people in Canada. Primary sources also reveal how South Asians resisted the scheme. These sources show that despite popular views of South Asians being hapless, hopeless, and inferior “hindoos” who could not survive in the northern hemisphere, the South Asian community advocated for their own interests while resisting discrimination. These sources depict a community who at times possessed significant agency within British Columbia while challenging attempts to force them out. Little has been written on the British Honduras Scheme. Historians Andrew Parnaby, Gregory S. Kealey, and Kirk Niergarth have written on the British Honduras Scheme through the lens of policing in Canada; their work focuses on the surveillance of “agitators” who opposed the scheme and other political movements.3 Hugh Johnston, in his article on Indian nationalists, discusses the British Honduras Scheme briefly.4 Although it appears in texts concerning Sikh diaspora, a more comprehensive study is merited because of the ways the scheme exemplifies broader historical patterns. Scholars such as Paula Hastings have explored the history of race in Canada within the British Empire through debates about possibly 1 Canada, Department of the Interior, "The East Indians in British Columbia: A report regarding the proposal to provide work in British Honduras for the indigent unemployed among them,”:11, July 29, 1908, http://komagatamarujourney.ca/node/11114 2 Andrew Parnaby and Gregory S. Kealey with Kirk Niergarth, “’High Handed, Impolite and Empire-breaking Actions’:Radicalism, Anti Imperialism, and Political Policing in Canada, 1860-1914,” in Canadian State Trials Volume Three, ed. Barry White and Susan Binnie. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009):493. 3 Andrew Parnaby and Gregory S. Kealey with Kirk Niergarth, “’High Handed,Impolite and Empire-breaking Actions’:Radicalism, Anti Imperialism, and Political Policing in Canada, 1860-1914,” in Canadian State Trials Volume Three, ed. Barry White and Susan Binnie. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009):493. 4 Hugh Johnston, “The Surveillance of Indian Nationalists in North America, 1908-1918”, BC Studies, 78, (1988):6. Mount Royal Undergraduate Humanities Review, Vol. 5 Reilly, “Intersections of Class and Race” 33 annexing the West Indies, examining arguments relating to the weather of Canada in contrast to the tropicality of the West Indies.5 Arguments concerning the weather appear in numerous newspapers and debates in British Columbia in 1908 when pertaining to South Asians and British Honduras. The word ‘Scheme’ was used in certain newspapers to describe this attempt to relocate South Asians, often calling it the “Hindu Deportation Scheme”, “The British Honduras emigration scheme”, and other similar names, which is why this paper will call the attempt the British Honduras Scheme.6 This effort to relocate South Asian populations was part of wider attempts to reinstate white male dominance in light of revolts in colonies across the British Empire, which questioned white male authorities.7 Many newspapers in British Columbia detailed rebellions in India that threatened British control over the area. This coverage possibly influenced anxieties about the presence of South Asians in the province. At the time of the British Honduras Scheme, debates occurred throughout Canada about possibly annexing the West Indies to expand its status as a global power. The framing of the scheme and its popular reception illustrates how class and race intersected to create a perceived hierarchy that defined white British Canadians as superior to South Asians. As we shall see, South Asian populations contested this perception and did not passively accept their subordinate status. The Honduras Scheme needs to be understood in the social context of its historical moment. This paper will begin by explaining societal conditions that gave rise to views of South Asian immigrants as a burden on the province. Press coverage of the scheme featuring the reoccurring theme of paternalism towards South Asian Immigrants will then be analyzed. Finally, the paper shifts its focus to document South Asian resistance to the scheme. At the outset, a brief note on terminology: in the press and official documents of the day, the term “Hindoo” was used to describe Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim immigrants, which is why the term “South Asian” will be used to better represent the people affected by this scheme. Between 1904 and 1907 an estimated 5,000 South Asian men immigrated to British Columbia.8 While some worked in sawmills, railway construction, or on farms, between 700 and 1,000 of these immigrants faced unemployment.9 Labour was often short term, and many of these men worked odd jobs with no stable income.10 Most of their employers were white men of British descent who generally did not keep South Asians as employees for an extended period of time. As a result, many South Asian men were seen as people capable of performing only lowly work. Many white Canadians believed that these immigrants did not even deserve to earn normal wages, which would not have amounted to much for most South Asians. In addition to becoming the brunt of many Canadians’ prejudices, South Asian men also faced job instability and low wages. These conditions might 5 Paula Hastings, “Rounding off the Confederation: Geopolitics, tropicality, and Canada’s “destiny” in the West Indies in the early twentieth century,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 14, no.2, (2013). 6 Unknown. 1908. “The Daily News.” N. Newspapers - New Westminster Daily News. December 14. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.031677 and Unknown, 1908, “The Golden Times,”, Newspapers- The Golden Times,, vol.3, no.35, December 16. 7 Marlyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality, (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2008), 6. 8 Isabel Wallace, “Komagata Maru Revisited: ‘Hindus,’ Hookworm, and the Guise of Public Health Protection,” BC Studies 178, no.1, (2013): 35. 9 Canada, Department of the Interior, "The East Indians in British Columbia: A report regarding the proposal to provide work in British Honduras for the indigent unemployed among them,”:6, July 29, 1908. 10 Ibid. Mount Royal Undergraduate Humanities Review, Vol. 5 Reilly, “Intersections of Class and Race” 34 have led to these immigrants being seen by many as a group of people that did not belong in Canada and could not hope to compete with white labour. The white working class of Vancouver viewed South Asians as a weak race that would become a burden.11 Most white men in British Columbia held anxieties about other Asian immigrants taking their jobs, expressing concerns that companies like the Canadian Pacific Railway had beaten “its Canadian employees into submission by the use of Japs” and that it would “have a hard time in making people believe that it cannot afford a decent wage to white employees without employing any Japanese or Hindoo.”12 Many major companies employed Japanese and South Asian labourers because of their willingness to work for low wages, which enabled them to generate large profits. Anxiety about the so-called “yellow peril” was widespread. An article from The Prospector asked how long it would be “before western Canada will be dominated by the yellow races?”13 Boundary Creek Times urged Martin Burrell, a farmer, to stop using “Hindoos on his property to the detriment of the white man.”14 Anxieties about South Asian immigrants became known as the “Hindoo Problem” to be debated by white populations. One measure taken against the South Asian population was the Continuous Journey Legislation initiated in January 1908, which prohibited entry of immigrants who were believed not to have come from their country of birth by a continuous journey.15 Its aim was to prevent “this class of people from coming to Canada.”16 This made immigration difficult for people coming to Canada from India, and the blatant discrimination